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Negotiating a salary with your ideal candidate

So you have gone through the time-consuming process of recruiting and have managed to identify the perfect candidate for the job and your business. The next step is the offer stage, which can sometimes be unpredictable. The challenge is to offer an attractive package that also keeps you within the boundaries of your staffing budget – but how do you do this and keep the candidate you want? Here are a few tips to help you achieve this:

1.Prepare, prepare, prepare

If you haven’t done this before you commenced recruitment now is the time to sit down and do some research. Look at recruitment trends within the engineering industry to find out what benefits candidates are looking for, benchmark your offer against the industry averages to see where you sit and review your offer to make it as attractive as you can.

2. Respect their skills and experience

When putting together the offer package for your candidate remember to base this around the value they will add to the company and the skills and knowledge they will bring. It is best not to focus on what their current salary is as whilst you may think you can save money by just paying a little more, you may risk losing the candidate as their salary could be their main motivation for leaving and may leave the job seeker feeling undervalued and prevent long-term loyalty to your business.

3. Negotiate

This stage is always a delicate point in the procedure but remember to maintain a stance of flexibility and if you cannot reach the salary they want, perhaps look at adding to the benefits package to improve the offer. However, do not be persuaded into paying far beyond your budget as this will not help protect the stability of your business, especially if you are an SME sized organisation.

4. Don’t delay

Do not forget that while you’re delaying, your candidate is still looking, and can quite often end up accepting a job with a different company because they have been more efficient with their paperwork. This has become a common problem for employers.